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GG Running Bad At The Golden Nugget
July 08, 2009
Well I busted the tourney and headed straight to the Rio while listening to 30 Seconds To Mars looped (really emo, self-hating, wanna slit your wrist stuff) with the volume booming so loudly my BOSE headphones were close to bursting!

Once back at the Rio I moped round telling anyone I could my bad beat story, and after coping the frankly I don’t give a damn expression from GG he asked me if I wanted to head Downtown to be wing-man for Dave King. I choose to join the fight to get DK hooked up, and Donnie also joined us.

We arrived at the Golden Nugget and walked through the carpark, pass the pool and then to the middle of the casino floor to hit a crossroad of what to do. Donnie wanted to play BlackJack, GG wanted to play Craps and I (obviously) wanted to play Baccarat. Since Donnie didn’t want to play craps, and either didn’t know how to play baccarat we all sat down at our own blackjack table.

I have no idea why I even sat down at the table because it is definitely –EV for me as I have no clue on any strategy. Donnie and GG just told me what to do and I followed; eventually returning to even after an early down swing. I quit, Donnie continued to grind and GG got stacked.

Over to Craps we went.

Me and GG started our roll pretty well with us both banking some profit before meeting up with some friends as DK had messaged that he would have to ditch us because the girl wanted to ‘stay in’.

We met up with Melissa (our camera girl) and her boyfriend Eddy at the roulette tables and I grinded a small profit before we threw $2 each on the number ten as Donnie quickly slammed down $75 on black.

”Number 10 for the PokerNews crew!”

Bang! The ball bobbled into the ten and we all banked a nice win while we headed back to the Baccarat room so that I could grind the $10 shoe as GG went back to BlackJack. He won what he was losing all back . . . and then lost it all again while I pushed my profits up to the $200 mark. Donnie and GG decided it was time for some old fashioned poker and they sat down at an uncapped $1-2 No Limit Holdem table.

Donnie and GG in action

I railed them for a while before returning to Craps to take my profit up to $350 for the night as we rolled past 4am. Back to poker I returned to see GG playing like a complete nutter as Donnie grinded a steady profit. After GG pushed all in dark for around the 100 bb mark and won some and lost some he cashed out to head to craps. I sat with Donnie for a little bit more before heading to join GG.

We stood near the craps table for nearly three minutes waiting before GG walked over to us.

”I’m done”
“Ok, craps it is then”
“No . . . I mean I’m done!”

With GG dropping the last of what he had in just eight hands of Blackjack we made our way home just as the sun was starting to rise. I booked a $350 win, Donnie was even to up and GG . . . well GG advised me not to repeat how much he had dropped . . . so let’s just say it was between $5 and $5000 . . . I’ll let you be the judge!
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Read more: Baccarat, BlackJack, Craps, David King, Donnie Peters, Eddy Sabat, Garry Gates, Golden Nugget, Melissa Castello, No Limit Holdem, Roulette
Day 2 Upon Us
August 29, 2008
So as I sit in Melissa's room downing a Tsing Tao we have finally come to the end . . . of both the APT Day 1's. Two days, 260 odd players and only 60 remaining as we play into the money tomorrow with the top 40 players being paid as they chase for a US500k first prize.

The Tournament Floor on Day 1a

It's been an interesting two days of poker as most of the players are player are flat out shocking! However the site of the APT girls strolling round in tight black dresses really reward me and Dave as we act as Heath and F-Train's bitches over the three weeks we're here.

One of the many beautiful APT girls

With not a whole lot of highlights so far, seeing one of the hottest girls in the world is sitting on top with a visit from Tila Tequila yesterday. I was way too chicken-shit to approach her; but thanks to Kirsty's help, Dave got a nice photo.

On a side note however as we left StarWorld Galaxy around midnight I headed into some dodgy alley-way shop and bought two Tsing Tao's for 10 mops or . . . $2 for the both of them. Dave on the other hand decided to order a second round and couldn't be bothered walking down to buy some so ordered room service. The outcome . . . 3 beers for 132 mops; so instead of the 5 mops per can of Tsing Tao he paid 44 mops for each one. I'm truly enjoing the 900% price-increased Tsing Tao!!
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Read more: Melissa Castello, Dave King, APT, Tsing Tao
Victorian Poker Championships Re-Cap
August 24, 2008
As you can tell I've been a bit lazy in the blog department; so I thought I should get back on it before I head to Macau for the APT and APPT tours.

Its been nearly a week since the Vic Champs concluded with Jay 'Seabeast' Kinkade taking out the title and the 200k first prize. It was a very busy two weeks for both me and Heath as we had some new reporters on hand; which meant we were on the floor getting hands ourselves at points because things got slow. We tried to get some hustle out of them but after a while we realised the difference between me (as a reporter at the WSOP) and them . . . I'm GATES trained!!!

Victorian Poker Championships Main Event

Made quite a few new friends including a bunch of guys from Sydney including Brendan Edmonds, Callum Ford, David Lovell, Ronan Barratt - had a crazy $1-1 home game one night at about 3am with Phi as well. So much action with super call's and pown-age occuring.

We worked like dogs over the two weeks, with me working everyday and Heath the same bar-one due to an appearance in the Tasmania State of Origin team. Late nights, early starts became standard after the first few days; but it all comes with the job I suppose. In terms of the workload, I do love having the extra workload on my plate (which also included the photography - excluding the ME) because I prefer things to be perfect then half-hearted and easy.

Oh well, so tomorrow I head off to Macau and Hong Kong for nearly three weeks. Me, Heath and Kirsty are on the same flight to Hong Kong tomorrow night and will be meeting up with Melissa Caaaaaastello, Dave Behr and Dave King for the double tour. After Macau I have a few days in Hong Kong to go shopping and drinking and will be joined by Melissa; as we're going to share a room. Heath and Kirsty are going to be there to, so it could be a fun few days.

Stay tuned for a daily post on Macau as we battle the humidity, hustle and bustle and degenercy that Macau will bring!
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Read more: Jay Kinkade, Victorian Poker Championships, Heath Chick, Kirsty Brew, Melissa Castello, Dave Behr, David King
PokerStars Players Party
July 27, 2008
With the freeroll over and having a healthy $400 in pocket (as Heath and Guzzardi both had 10%) we were off to the PokerStars Players Party at Rain nightclub at the Palms. With Eric and Don ditching me as I was having a piss in the Rio carpark, I swung a lift via Garry along with Boncek and Schipis. On arrival we met up with some of the fellow PokerNews employees, grabbed our armbands for VIP access and headed inside.

The main bar and dancefloor

As me and Heath were asked for ID's, all the PokerStars pros were being snapped by the many cameras and intervied by our own Melissa Castello. Once into Rain we were greated with a burlesque-themed party and by a mass of people taking up all the dancefloor space on the bottom level. Losing Heath as I wondered past the main bar and up the stairs, I spotted Slippers and Dane high on the third level and headed straight there. As we headed down to the second level, directly above the main bar, we joined a booth filled with predominately Aussies. Joe Hachem and family, Tony Hachem and Shane Warne, Emad Tahtooh, Grant Levy, Billy the Croc, Gary Benson and many more filled the couch and standing space as a longed for a drink.

Grant Levy, myself and Tony Hachem

Heading up to the bar I bumped into Joy and her entourage which included Maria Ho , who everyone seems to be obsessed with apart from me. As the girls bought me a drink I found Donnie and we negotiated our way back into the 'Hachem' area as our VIP status of grey wristbands weren't as good as the black ones needed to have full VIP access. After Joe did his speech about how PokerStars are going in this years main event Emad let me have his black wristband and I tucked it under my black hair tie that was around my wrist from earlier.

Dita Von Teese in her second show of the night

As the night progressed everyone was downing the free drinks as more and more fun was being had. With burlesque dancers on platforms and suspended above the air, a Dita Von Teese show on the front stage, a fight between PokerNews employees Eric Ramsey and Joe Schepis as well as a full on pash-fest put on by Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier it was definately a night not to miss!

Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier going at it on the bar

One of the burlesque dancers

We all headed to Maccas after the night was out, and just when you thought the night couldn't get any better, who do we see having maccas . . . Joe Hachem and his family. I always thought that Joe was so down to earth, but to see him taking a chunk out of a quarter pounder just proves it more. After eating our burgers I decided to crash with Don and Slippers as Christian was playing $1-2 and who knows how long he would be there!! Another night on a couch . . . its something I'm definately getting use to . . . ha ha ha.

P.S - I'm going to post some photos in this blog, but for the rest head to my facebook.
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Read more: PokerStars, Rain Nightclub, The Palms, Chris Boncek, Garry Gates, Joe Schepis, Heath Chick, Melissa Castello, Anthony Molinaro, Dane Jensen, Emad Tahtooh, Joe Ha
Players Lounge, Taser and HORSE
July 27, 2008
Following the cash in the Caesars Palace mega-stack series I headed into work for the last 6 hours or so of my intended shift. Following that I was booked in for the PokerNews freeroll where the (as voted) top 6 reporters played off for a seat into the following day's WSOP $1,500 event. With me and Slippers quickly donking off our chips the remaining reporters got into a tasing war with Melissa's taser in the back alleys of the Amazon room.

Soon after we headed to the newly found players lounge. This lounge was awesome, it contained a virtual golf game where you get to smack the ball into a screen, a heads-up machine, Nintendo wii, putting green, pool and some arcade games. Garry, Mel, Slippers, Zeeks and I stayed there until the wee hours playing props and drinking until everyone decided that at 6am it was probably time to leave. Being the sick degen that I am, and having to work at 12 I decided I would sleep on the couch and not waste time or money in getting home.

Zeeks and Slippers playing heads-up

With a full day of work under my belt after the night on the couch at the Rio I decided that on my day off I would venture out to the Premium Factory Outlets for a day of shopping. Seeing Slippers on the way to the taxi stand I somehow convinced to come along. With my purchase of a nice Polo sweat for my dad and my BOSE headphones me and Slippers were on our to the Venetian to play some poker.

Sitting down on the $4-8 Omaha hi-lo game our stack fluctuated up and down several times before we colluded like Jozef Berec never could!! With Slippers in the small blind and myself in the big blind, we both checked preflop before slippers led for $4 on a flop of with -x-x, I decided to try and sneak some extra value in there so i raised the action up to $8 with and we got two callers. When the hit the turn Slippers led for $8 and i called followed by the two other players. When Slippers checked the on the river, I bet, and it was called round to slippers who 2-bet, followed by my 3-bet and we got both of the remaining players to call and we scooped the pot. SHIP IT CRUCIAL!!! Collusion at its FINEST!!!

Following a good old Aussie BBQ at Slippers house followed by some jacuzzi and poker action I was rostered on to cover the 50k HORSE. With a long day us reporters scored some free WSOP mugs, as well as me personally scoring Phil Ivey's main event ticket stub with negative 200k in prop bets written on the back as well as Durrr's HORSE ticket stub. Maybe they can take the event out and it will be worth HEAPS on ebay!!!
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Read more: Melissa Castello, Anthony Molinaro, Garry Gates, Zeeks Guza, Players Lounge, Premium Factory Outlets, Venetian, BOSE